Method for Diagnosing Disease from Tongue Image

1. A method for diagnosing diseases by inspecting images of an individual's tongue comprising: forming a first image of said tongue, a color checker, and a portion of said individual's face; forming a second image of said tongue and said portion of said individual's face; performing a color comparison of said portion of said individual's face in said second image to said portion of said individual's face in said first image; matching the colors in said second image to the colors in said first image based on said color comparison; and diagnosing at least one disease based on changes in said first tongue image and said second tongue image.

2. The method as in claim 1 wherein a color calibration is performed on said first image prior to said color comparison step.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said diagnosis is aided by comparison to reference images of other individuals tongues.

4. A method for diagnosing diseases by inspecting images of an individual's tongue comprising: forming a first image of said tongue and a portion of said individual's face; forming a second image of said tongue and said portion of said individual's face; performing a color comparison of said portion of said individual's face in said second image to said portion of said individual's face in said first image; matching the colors in said second image to the colors in said first image based on said color comparison; and diagnosing at least one disease based on changes in said first tongue image and said second tongue image.

5. The method of claim 4 comprising the additional steps of: forming a third image of said tongue, said portion of said individual's face, and a color checker; performing a color calibration on said third image; performing a color comparison of said portion of said individual's face in said third image to said portion of said individual's face in said first and second image; and matching the colors in said first and second image to the colors in said third image based on said color comparison.

6. The method of claim 4 comprising the additional steps of: transmitting said first image and said second image to a process unit; and performing said diagnosis step at said process unit.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of: retrieving the patient's tongue history records from an image storage facility; reviewing and classifying the first or second image of said tongue and the retrieved history records; transmitting, displaying, or storing the classification, or tongue records.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of classifying the acquired and retrieved tongue images using an inspection mode further comprises the steps of: collecting a plurality of sample tongue images from healthy and unhealthy individuals; extracting relevant color information from said plurality of sample tongue images in a transformed color space; extracting relevant non-color information from said plurality of sample tongue images; training classifiers with the extracted color and non-color information; and applying the trained classifiers to the acquired at least one image of a patient tongue.